Gone
by nakarisaune
Summary: Darquesse is gone, and soon Valkyrie will be gone too. Spoilers up to LSODM.


The world ends almost exactly as the visions said it would, and nobody saves the world because Darquesse killed them all. The skies are red and the cities are ruined. China Sorrows is beautiful dust and Fletcher Renn is forgotten ash. Dexter Vex is a mangled body without a head and Saracen Rue is a mangled head without a body. Little Alice is dead by her big sister's hand, and when she died her parents screamed. But they didn't scream for long until Darquesse snuffed out their lives. It was as easy as blowing out candles.

In Japan, everyone is dead. In Mozambique, everyone is dead. In the continent of North America there is not a single sign of life. In Ireland a scared, lonely girl is sitting on a felled tree. The girl is curled up so nobody can see her tears, and nobody can see her emaciated body, and nobody can see the skull held close to her chest. Nobody is there to see, because Darquesse killed them all, and now Darquesse is gone, and soon Valkyrie Cain will be gone too.

...

It is like surfacing from a long dive when Valkyrie returns. She has been held under for so long, seeing only blurred images of the world, and she remembers nothing but those blurred images showing death and destruction and events of an apocalyptic nature. It feels like a dream and she stretches before waking up properly. The dream is over now, and she opens her eyes, takes a breath of the fresh air, screams her damaged little heart out.

...

Skulduggery looks up as Darquesse approaches him. She smiles, and the smile is Valkyrie's, and if Skulduggery had eyes maybe they would have been glistening with tears. He is dressed in the uniform of the Dead Men, even though he is the only Dead Man left, and soon he will be dead. Properly dead. Darquesse doesn't make mistakes with murder - she's had too much practice to mess up.

"Hello," she says happily. Perfectly calm.

Skulduggery is shaking and he tries to meet her gaze but she is just too like Valkyrie and he lowers his skull. "Hi." He's trying to sound nonchalant.

"I guess you know what's going to happen now?"

"Yes."

"I always liked you, you know. You amused me."

"Yes."

"Cat got your tongue?" She smiles at him, twirls a loose strand of hair around her finger. "I miss your wit."

"I miss your sanity."

"I am perfectly sane, Skulduggery."

"Fine. I miss Valkyrie."

Darquesse tips her head back and shows him her gleaming grin. "She's not coming back. Face it, skeleton - she's gone."

...

After a year of murder Darquesse runs out of blood to spill and she turns to destroying animals. After months of that she runs out of species to drive extinct and she turns to destroying the already destroyed remains of houses. There is one thing left to destroy. Once the life has been ripped from that thing, Darquesse smiles, sits down next to old, old bones, and destroys herself.

It is then that Valkyrie wakes up.

...

The Reflection - Darquesse refuses to call it Stephanie - is dead. Once, it tried to kill Darquesse, while it hid in a crowd of mortals. Perhaps it thought she would hesitate to destroy them. The Reflection obviously did not know her as well as it professed to. It had aimed the Sceptre of Ancients at her and it must have thought she wouldn't notice. But she did. The black lightening flew at her and Darquesse laughed and sent it back where it had came from. The crowd of mortals turned to dust. Darquesse rose up into the sky, laughing like their deaths had been the best jokes ever told.

Darquesse is a clever girl and she figures out pretty fast that before rising into the sky, she should check for planes. It surprises her that airlines are still operating until she realizes that they are people trying to escape the carnage. From that moment on whenever she sees a plane she pulverizes it. The dust of bodies and metal mixes with the rain and sends a nice clear message - there is no escape from Darquesse. Soon, planes stop flying at all. This may partly be because Darquesse has killed so many people and killed so much hope, and it may partly be because the few survivors are too busy hiding. Darquesse smokes them out of their dens and she destroys them.

...

She can see his magic pulse around his bones and she wants to know how it all fits together, so she pokes it. His soul is a beautiful shade of grey. She can see it through his empty eye sockets.

"Speak," she commands him, but he doesn't. So stubborn. Too stubborn. Darquesse wrenches his legs away and he cries out but he doesn't speak. "Talk to me," she says again, her voice cold as steel. Skulduggery remains silent. She takes her time dismantling his arms. "You know, you're the only thing left alive. I saved you for last." His fingers are so easy to snap.

Skulduggery stares at her with those empty eyes. His arm comes off in her hand. He doesn't respond, but she can see his soul in his skull, and he is still alive.

"Speak," she commands again. He stares at her and she kicks him in the ribs.

"Speak!" she demands, and she rips off his last remaining limb.

"I am going to kill you," she says calmly. "I am going to kill you if you don't talk to me right now."

He remains silent. Darquesse kicks his ribs again and they cave inwards.

"SPEAK!" she shrieks. He doesn't, so she grabs his skull and lifts it free of his body.

His jawbone moves and he says the word "Valkyrie," but it's too late. Darquesse reaches into the cavity where his brain once was and she ends his long, long life. Then she ends her own and sets Valkyrie free.

...

Valkyrie hasn't eaten in days because there is nothing left to eat. Darquesse never ate either - she must have run off of pure magical energy. Valkyrie doesn't have that energy, and the hunger gnaws at her stomach. There's nothing she can do now. Her vision is starting to fade but that doesn't matter because there's nothing to see that's worth seeing. Her skin is stretched over nothing but bones and she almost looks like Skulduggery, but Skulduggery is nothing but shattered bones now, and Skulduggery is dead. Valkyrie wipes her stinging eyes and curls up around the skull. Skulduggery is gone, and the Reflection is gone, and Darquesse is gone.

And now, Valkyrie Cain is gone too.


End file.
